Graffiti Wall

What is it?

A graffiti wall is essentially a physical comments board, set up as a way to receive feedback from users.

The strengths of graffiti walls are firstly that users like them: it’s easy to leave feedback anonymously and quickly (and indeed the one in the Morrell is so popular we no longer get much feedback via other methods). Secondly we can close the feedback loop by responding directly to comments - we’ve heard from the student bodies YUSU and GSA that students much prefer an instant response to their specific comment than a ‘you said, we did’ campaign a few months later. Thirdly graffiti walls capture non-extreme feedback - from users who are neither furious nor delighted with our offering, but somewhere in between. This tends to be more representative of the wider user-group’s feelings, whereas for example Comments Cards are often only filled in by people who feel very strongly about something, either negatively or positively.

The Morrell graffiti wall is run within Customer Services: they answer questions, wipe it periodically, monitor it for offensive content and document the feedback.

You can talk to Customer Services about using part of their wall within a UX project - for example we used it get feedback on a prototype furniture layout during the UX Space Project - or it can be useful to use a separate mobile whiteboard for your specific purpose. Write a question or prompt at the top, provide pens for responses, and then monitor and document the results. The key things here are to stay on top of it (often it will fill up every day) and to position it well - the positioning of a graffiti wall has a big impact on the content of the feedback.

An example of a graffiti wall in action inside the University of York Library

When should I use it?

A Graffiti Wall such as the Morrell example above is essentially always in use as it is permanent. However you can use this technique for specific projects or purposes by posing a particular question on the Wall and documenting feedback. For example, if you want to know if a newly redesigned space is working, you can ask for feedback on this on the Wall.

You can also use temporary mobile white-boards to get feedback on something specific: in the Library we’ve found this is far and away the best way to get student peer-to-peer tips as part of our #UoYTips campaigns (probably because it’s anonymous; on social media we get far less response when we ask for tips).

Other Libraries have reported that where you put the Graffiti Wall has a large bearing on the subject of the graffiti. For example a Graffiti Wall near a cafe will get a disproportionate amount of comments about the cafe, but if moved to a different part of the Library the cafe-related-comments reduce almost to zero.

What materials will I need?

You will need a number of materials to make use of Graffiti Walls:

Whiteboard	Either a permanently mounted whiteboard or a whiteboard on wheels. (Flip-charts can work but don’t always seem to induce as many comments and notes.)
Whiteboard Pens	You’ll need pens for the users to write with, and the same colour of pen for you to consistently respond to comments with.
Preferred method of recording feedback	This could be using a camera or manually recording feedback using a notebook or computer.

How do I do it?

The Morrell Graffiti Wall is run within Customer Services: they answer questions, wipe it periodically, monitor it for offensive content and document the feedback by taking regular photographs. Feedback is sometimes also tagged by theme and fed into relevant projects or to relevant service leaders.

The key things here are to stay on top of it (often it will fill up every day) and to position it well.